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The Riverside Group Limited (202416108)

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REPORT

COMPLAINT 202416108

The Riverside Group Limited

24 September 2025

 

Our approach

The Housing Ombudsman’s approach to investigating and determining complaints is to decide what is fair in all the circumstances of the case. This is set out in the Housing Act 1996 and the Housing Ombudsman Scheme (the Scheme). The Ombudsman considers the evidence and looks to see if there has been any ‘maladministration’, for example, whether the landlord has failed to keep to the law, followed proper procedure, followed good practice, or behaved in a reasonable and competent manner.

Both the resident and the landlord have submitted information to the Ombudsman, and this has been carefully considered. Their accounts of what has happened are summarised below. This report is not an exhaustive description of all the events that have occurred in relation to this case, but an outline of the key issues as a background to the investigation’s findings.

The complaint

  1. The complaint is about the landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about grounds maintenance at his housing estate.

Background

  1. The resident holds a shared ownership lease with the landlord.
  2. On 4 September 2023, the resident complained to the landlord. He said:
    1. He had never seen any grounds maintenance carried out on his estate. The grounds maintenance contractor only cut the grass once a month between May and October each year. The contractor left the grass cuttings behind, and these went brown and were unsightly. There were around 20 dead trees next to the sustainable drainage systems (SUDS).
    2. He wanted the landlord to provide a schedule setting out how often grounds maintenance should be carried out.
    3. The service charge he paid for grounds maintenance was not justified.
  3. The landlord issued its stage 1 complaint response on 30 April 2024. It said:
    1. The grounds maintenance contractor at the resident’s housing scheme had told it that it only carried out maintenance visits from spring to autumn and did not carry out any winter visits.
    2. It accepted that trees had failed to thrive and were dying in their current locations. The contractor had replaced 3 trees and had not charged residents for this.
    3. The contractor was under instructions only to cut the grass on the SUDS.
    4. The contractor had told the landlord that the local authority was overseeing the grounds maintenance contractor’s work and would contact the contractor if it was not happy with the work it had carried out.
    5. It apologised for the length of time it had taken to respond to the resident’s queries. It said this had been due to staff leaving its employment and changing roles. It said it had provided feedback to the team responsible.
  4. On 11 June 2024, the resident escalated his complaint to stage 2 of the landlord’s complaint procedure. He said that the communal shrubs were not maintained and there was no weed control. He again raised concerns about the condition of the trees on the estate.
  5. The resident complained to the Ombudsman on 22 July 2024. He said the landlord had not responded to his complaint and had ignored his emails and telephone calls. He said the contractor did not carry out the grounds maintenance it was contracted to. He advised that the landlord had not provided him with evidence that the contractor was carrying out its duties. He said the landlord should refund the service charges he had been paying since moving to the estate and should replace the grounds maintenance contractor.
  6. On 30 August 2024, the landlord issued its stage 2 complaint response. It apologised to the resident and acknowledged it needed to be more involved in issues involving maintenance so that it could resolve residents’ queries quickly and efficiently. It said:
    1. It was trying to arrange an on-site meeting. It advised it would ensure residents were informed of this meeting so that a resident could be present.
    2. The grounds maintenance contractor had said it was in talks with the developer about the trees around the SUDS. The contractor said that the developer’s landscapers had recently cut back the banks of the SUDS and these now looked much tidier. The contractor said that their policy was to “cut and drop” the grass.
    3. The grounds maintenance contractor visited twice a month from March to October and visited once a month in November to December.
    4. The resident’s service charges did not just pay towards the landscaping, they also contributed towards public liability insurance, administration of a reserve fund to pay for any future works such as additional planting and a repairs fund, and management services including invoicing and collections, contractor payments, and banking services.
    5. The local authority’s planning officer had told the landlord the local authority was not overseeing the grounds maintenance contractor’s work as the contractor had claimed and had in fact issued a Planning Contravention Notice (PCN) to the contractor. The PCN stated that the SUDS and surrounding areas had been left in an untidy state and weeds and overgrown vegetation had spread towards the footpaths. The contractor should either recultivate and reseed the SUDS or mow them more frequently. The PCN also set out that the contractor should replace the dead trees and water them until the new trees were established. The local authority had requested that the contractor mow the amenity grass at the top of the SUDs fortnightly, mow the sloping banks of the SUDs 4 times in the growing season, and mow the bases of the SUDS annually.
    6. Following the PCN, the developer of the housing estate had agreed to replace the trees.
  7. The resident contacted the landlord on 9 October 2024. He said the landlord had not attended a recent meeting held with the grounds maintenance contractor. The landlord had not sent a copy of the grounds maintenance newsletter to residents. On 1 November 2024, the resident chased the landlord as he had not received a response. The landlord responded the same day to say it had asked the contractor for a copy of the newsletter. It said the resident’s complaint was now closed and if the resident had any further queries, he should contact its customer contact centre.
  8. On 12 November 2024, the landlord sent the resident a copy of the contractor’s newsletter. The landlord said it was trying to arrange a meeting with the contractor and would update the resident so that he could attend. It said it may have missed the initial meeting with the contractor due to a member of staff being off work for a prolonged period.
  9. On 2 September 2025, the landlord confirmed to us that the developer had replaced several trees however it had not yet removed all the dead trees.

Assessment

Scope of investigation

  1. The resident has reported issues with the grounds maintenance at his housing estate since 2021. However, these historical reports are outside the scope of this investigation. As the substantive issues become historical it is increasingly difficult for either the landlord, or an independent body such as the Ombudsman, to conduct an effective review of the actions taken to address those issues. Therefore, this assessment is focused on the landlord’s actions in responding to the events which occurred following the resident’s complaint of 4 September 2023 onwards. However, it is understood the grounds maintenance at the resident’s estate was a longstanding issue, and the landlord was expected to take this into account in its response to the resident’s complaints.

Policies and procedures

  1. The landlord’s complaint process has 2 stages. Its complaints policy states that at stage 1 it will provide a response in 10 working days. At stage 2 it will provide a response in 20 working days. The policy states that if it needs more time to investigate a complaint, any extension of time will not exceed 10 working days at stage 1 and 20 working days at stage 2.
  2. The Ombudsman’s complaint handling code (The Code), published on our website, sets out our expectations of landlords’ complaint handling practices. All landlords which are members of our scheme are obliged to follow the Code. The Code defines a complaint as: ‘an expression of dissatisfaction, however made, about the standard of service, actions or lack of action by a landlord, its own staff, or those acting on its behalf, affecting an individual resident or group of residents’.

The landlord’s handling of the resident’s concerns about grounds maintenance at his housing estate

  1. The landlord has told the Ombudsman that it is not responsible for grounds maintenance at the resident’s housing estate and that the grounds maintenance contractor is employed by the developer of the estate. The landlord has explained that it cannot replace or remove the grounds maintenance contractor. We accept that the landlord is not responsible for carrying out grounds maintenance at the resident’s housing estate, however it had a responsibility to chase the developer and grounds maintenance contractor for a response to the concerns the resident raised. The landlord has a duty to ensure that the services it is charging residents for through their service charges are being provided.
  2. The resident complained to the landlord on 4 September 2023 about the lack of grounds maintenance at his housing estate. This was a clear expression of dissatisfaction which met the definition of a complaint, as set out in the Code. It would have been appropriate therefore for the landlord to respond to the resident’s complaint at stage 1 of its complaint procedure. The landlord did not issue its stage 1 complaint response until 30 April 2024 which was over 6 months outside of its timescales of 10 working days for responding to stage 1 complaints. This delay will have likely caused the resident considerable frustration as well as time, trouble, and inconvenience.
  3. The resident escalated his complaint to stage 2 of the landlord’s complaint procedure on 11 June 2024. On 9 July the landlord told the resident it needed more time to respond to his stage 2 complaint. This was in line with its complaint handling code which states that if the landlord needs more time to investigate a stage 2 complaint it can request an extension of up to 20 working days. However, it did not issue its stage 2 complaint response until 30 August 2024, nearly 3 weeks after the extended deadline for responding to the resident’s stage 2 complaint. This delay will have likely caused the resident further time, trouble and inconvenience.
  4. The landlord responded appropriately to the resident’s concern about his service charges. It was reasonable for it to explain that his service charges did not just pay towards the landscaping, they also contributed towards public liability insurance, a reserve fund to pay for any future works such as additional planting, a repairs fund, and management services. The landlord was not obliged to refund the service charge because services were being provided, although there were concerns about the quality of some of the services, which the landlord was expected to investigate and address.
  5. In its stage 2 complaint response, the landlord informed the resident it would try and arrange an on-site meeting about the grounds maintenance. We accept that the relevant staff member was absent from work long-term, however it would have been reasonable for the landlord to ensure that another staff member attended in their absence. We recommend that the landlord ensures that there is cover from other staff when members of its staff are absent for prolonged periods of time.
  6. The landlord also informed the resident in its stage 2 complaint response, that the grounds maintenance contractor’s schedule was due to change. It would have been reasonable for the landlord to provide the resident with information about these changes, once these took effect. We accept that the landlord forwarded the resident a copy of the contractor’s September 2024 newsletter on 12 November 2024, which contained some information about the grounds maintenance schedule. However, the resident repeatedly had to chase the landlord to send him the contractor’s newsletter. The delay of nearly a month and a half in the landlord providing this information to the resident, was unreasonable.
  7. We asked the landlord to provide us with all correspondence it had sent the resident since November 2024 and asked for an update as to whether the developer had complied with the local authority’s PCN. As noted above, on 2 September 2025, the landlord informed us that the developer had not yet removed all the dead trees on the resident’s housing estate. However, it did not show us it had kept the resident updated about the actions the developer had committed to, nor whether the developer had fully complied with the local authority’s PCN. We order the landlord to provide the resident and the Ombudsman with a written update on the current position regarding the dead trees, and to provide an estimated timescale as to when these will be removed. We also recommend that the landlord seeks an update from the local authority as to whether the developer has complied with the PCN and shares this update with the resident.
  8. The landlord’s errors in its handling of the resident’s concerns about grounds maintenance at his housing estate, amount to maladministration. The landlord has not offered the resident any financial redress for its failings in this case. The Ombudsman’s remedies guidance, published on our website, states that where we identify maladministration, compensation of £100 and above is appropriate. The exact amount will depend on the level of distress and inconvenience caused to the resident, by the landlord’s errors. The landlord is ordered to pay the resident £200 compensation for the distress and inconvenience caused by its errors in this case.

Determination (decision)

  1. In accordance with paragraph 52 of the Housing Ombudsman Scheme, there was maladministration by the landlord in its handling of the resident’s concerns about grounds maintenance on his housing estate.

Orders and recommendations

Orders

  1. The landlord is ordered to do the following within 4 weeks of the date of this report, ensuring that the Ombudsman is provided with evidence of compliance by the same date:
    1. Provide the resident and the Ombudsman with a written update on the current position regarding the dead trees and provide an estimated timescale as to when these will be removed.
    2. Pay the resident £200 compensation for the time, trouble, and inconvenience caused by errors in its handling of his concerns about grounds maintenance at his housing estate.

Recommendations

  1. We recommend that the landlord:
    1. Ensures that there is cover from other staff when members of its staff are absent for prolonged periods of time.
    2. Seeks an update from the local authority as to whether the developer has complied with the PCN.
    3. Shares any updates with the resident and other affected residents.